Japan Press Weekly

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2014 March 19 - 25 [POLITICS]

Media workers call for opposition parties’ united efforts to repeal State Secrets Law

Leaders of media workers’ unions met on March 20 with Japanese Communist Party Chair Shii Kazuo in the Diet building, requesting him to submit to the Diet a bill to repeal the state secrets protection law together with other opposition parties.

Koremura Takaichi, vice president of the Mass Media Information and Culture Union (MIC), asked Shii to make concerted efforts with other opposition parties to abolish the act which was forcibly enacted in December by the ruling coalition.

Yonekura Gaisho, vice chair of the Japan Federation of Newspaper Workers’ Unions (Shimbun Roren), noted that state authorities are stepping up the monitoring of the media even before the secrecy law takes effect. He referred to the fact that the Defense Ministry lodged a protest in February with a local paper over its report about a government plan to deploy Self-Defense Force troops in Okinawa’s Ishigaki City.

Shii replied that it is the “most effective” for opposition forces to jointly submit the bill, saying, “JCP Vice Chair Koike Akira is now calling for policy leaders of opposition parties to cooperate.”

The JCP chair also pointed out that the Abe government aims at achieving three goals at the same time: legalizing the state’s exercise of the right to collective self-defense by changing the interpretation of the war-renouncing Constitution; controlling information in order to mobilize the general public for war; and glorifying Japan’s past war of aggression. He said that the JCP will work to strengthen the movement to foil Abe’s attempt to turn Japan into a nation that wages war.

Past related article:
> PM will classify state secrets all by himself: JCP Akamine [February 22, 2014]